Proportionwheel

in case you need a break from all the awfulness (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/s...

RT if you've never had a tab of ChatGPT open, period.

My new friend goes everywhere with me

The word of the day is lymphoma which has apparently migrated to my brain and taken up residence there. The good news is that it is somewhat treatable so maybe I will be around long enough to write a detailed account of this whole experience or maybe I just won’t feel like doing that 

One thing is clear and that is that hospitals suck even very good ones like this one and believe me I think I’m getting excellent care but it’s still sucks 

Strangely, however, this has not made me a billionaire.

my guiding principle is that I’m rational and you’re not.

their sheer arrogance alone is quite enough reason to reject “EA”

Kill sports and see how that goes

This is so sad. Americans don’t know what they’ve got ’til it’s gone.

My thoughts on existential risk: * Humanity isn't going to be wiped out any time soon. * Negligible chance that AI by itself causes catastrophic damage to humanity (millions dead). * Some nontrivial chance that human beings will leverage AI to help them do something catastrophically harmful.

there may be much learned about the Universe and our place in it, by way of close study of Lunar soil. To me a SETI breakthrough seems less likely than a breakthrough in Astrophysics or Cosmology or adjacent

all making sense now. plus Theil’s fascination with feudalism or at least the BT

werner herzog on AI filmmaking (from here www.indiewire.com/features/int...)

Probably it was a station-by-station decision (or lack of one) from the feeds. I was in my mid-fifties, watching in a YMCA men’s lounge in Burlington, VT. I remember thinking about those falling poeple and trying to grasp what I was seeing.

I have never even opened a ink to or otherwise opened any ”AI” anything, and I have zero FOMO.

I want someone whispering in his ear when he's on his death bed like Princess Isabelle whispered to Longshanks at the end of Braveheart "They've started tearing down the ballroom."

FIX YOUR HEART! Honestly you”ll feel better afterward

amateur astronomers (big overlap with amateur radio there). I’d guess 30% of my astro club are also hams.

this is life, kinda, right here.

turns out the guy who looked, talked and dressed like he didn’t give a shit about the job…doesn’t give a shit about the job

Me at about 16 c.1963 with the telescope I made, at Stellafane

I know quite a few academics, but it just hit me that I probably know >more< ex-academics. Like the former prof who put in my kitchen floor.

This is a very important thread.

Dear media organizations: Pete Hegseth is not something-something-opposing DEI. He is discriminating against Black and female members of the military. Openly. Get it right.

S&T at Stellafane skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-ne...

well, fuck, clouds.

It sounds like that thing about burning iron from a few weeks back. Turns out that a lot of people don't understand thermodynamics.

White racists complaining about how woke Harvard is (from the New Orleans Times-Democrat, 1/17/1903)

In 2015, if you asked me the major “legacy” power-political advantages the U.S. had, I would’ve said: - unprecedented alliance network; - experienced military w/ strong mechanisms for cultivating human capital; - extensive, institutionalized diplomatic capital; - immigration & reverse brain drain

“if I weren’t born a girl I’d be a drag queen” —my new fave Dolly quote, from a letterman show appearance.

Has anyone polled whether the president should be impeached and removed or are they afraid of what the results would show?

see ALT

If you haven’t noticed, it is Canada that is fighting for decency and respect in international relations, and the USA that is acting without honor or logic. All Americans who believe in doing the right thing must stand with Canada.

excellent thread, explanatory for us who do not know this stuff.

Lucian Truscott (and Bill Mauldin, sorta) have important things to say. luciantruscott.substack.com/p/stars-stri...

I mean, literal fucking puppy torture.

The fact that Judges are unhappy that they can no longer extend the “presumption of regularity” to federal prosecutors is a microcosm of what we are all experiencing: we can no longer presume that government decisions are arrived at by regular, defined processes under law and Constitution.

Some people here seem to think they have a special right to argue with far more accomplished people in replies, and that their targets are mean if they call attention to their bullshit via quote-skeets. Of course their targets are generally female and/or Black.